Jay Matheson and the Jam Room

By Kyle Petersen The situation in which you first see Jay Matheson will invariably color how you think about him. Maybe the first time you met him was long ago when he was that thin, quiet, bespectacled punk rocker mixing the sound at a local show. Or maybe you saw him play bass in Bachelors of Art, one of the great Columbia bands of the late 1980s, which mixed metal, progressive rock, and pop hooks in a way that still seems surprising. Maybe you... Read More

Chris Bickel: Columbia’s Dark Lord?

By Kyle Petersen He’s made stage entrances royally hoisted on a platform carried by his able-bodied underlings. And that trash littering the stage? It’s gay porn. He encourages his audiences to smash stuff and scream at the top of their lungs. Dressed as a preacher, he’s brazenly doled out open-mouth kisses from a booth at an area fund-raiser. He’s hosted a private party to see how many naked humans he could stuff into a phone booth. And he... Read More